Campaign Monitor is an email marketing solution that can help businesses add new subscribers, send email newsletters and generate various reports. It is suitable for businesses of all sizes.
The solution offers several features that...
Read More

Campaign Monitor is an email marketing solution that can help businesses add new subscribers, send email newsletters and generate various reports. It is suitable for businesses of all sizes.
The solution offers several features that...
Read More

Klaviyo is a cloud-based email marketing solution for e-commerce businesses of any size. Key features include integration with a variety of platforms, audience segmentation and performance reporting.
Klaviyo allows users to send out...
Read More

Klaviyo is a cloud-based email marketing solution for e-commerce businesses of any size. Key features include integration with a variety of platforms, audience segmentation and performance reporting.
Klaviyo allows users to send out...
Read More

Built for small- and medium-sized sales and marketing teams, Infusionsoft offers tools for managing customer relationships from contact to conversion. They serve users in a variety of industries from health care to hospitality.

Built for small- and medium-sized sales and marketing teams, Infusionsoft offers tools for managing customer relationships from contact to conversion. They serve users in a variety of industries from health care to hospitality.

Workfront (formerly AtTask) is a software solution that allows marketing teams and other departments to prioritize, route, manage and report on all of their work—from large projects to small, ad hoc requests.
With more than...
Read More

Workfront (formerly AtTask) is a software solution that allows marketing teams and other departments to prioritize, route, manage and report on all of their work—from large projects to small, ad hoc requests.
With more than...
Read More

Act-On is a comprehensive marketing automation tool designed to offer businesses a complete suite of applications, including email marketing, website visitor tracking, lead management, social media management, reporting and analytics,...
Read More

Act-On is a comprehensive marketing automation tool designed to offer businesses a complete suite of applications, including email marketing, website visitor tracking, lead management, social media management, reporting and analytics,...
Read More

SendinBlue is a web-based email marketing tool suited for organizations of all sizes. The software comes with tools and templates for marketing automation, email campaigns, transactional emails and SMS messages.
SendinBlue facilitates...
Read More

SendinBlue is a web-based email marketing tool suited for organizations of all sizes. The software comes with tools and templates for marketing automation, email campaigns, transactional emails and SMS messages.
SendinBlue facilitates...
Read More

PlanPlus Online is a complete online solution for customer relationship management and business collaboration. It includes modules for SFA, customer support and email marketing, all designed to enhance overall productivity.

PlanPlus Online is a complete online solution for customer relationship management and business collaboration. It includes modules for SFA, customer support and email marketing, all designed to enhance overall productivity.

Desk.com is a customer support engine for customer service professionals in small and midsize companies. The system integrates with Salesforce and contains a variety of reporting features that can help administrators and employees...
Read More

Desk.com is a customer support engine for customer service professionals in small and midsize companies. The system integrates with Salesforce and contains a variety of reporting features that can help administrators and employees...
Read More

Hatchbuck is a sales and marketing solution designed for small to midsize businesses. The integrated solution offers combined sales automation, marketing automation and email marketing features. Hatchbuck is a good fit for a wide range...
Read More

Hatchbuck is a sales and marketing solution designed for small to midsize businesses. The integrated solution offers combined sales automation, marketing automation and email marketing features. Hatchbuck is a good fit for a wide range...
Read More

Marketo offers a web-based email marketing platform for companies of all sizes to form and preserve engaging customer relationships.
This marketing suite features integrated applications that deliver a range of capabilities including...
Read More

Marketo offers a web-based email marketing platform for companies of all sizes to form and preserve engaging customer relationships.
This marketing suite features integrated applications that deliver a range of capabilities including...
Read More

Oracle Marketing Cloud is a software-as-a-service solution that meets the needs of both the B2B and B2C marketer. Oracle Marketing Cloud (previously Oracle, Responsys, BlueKai, Compendium, and DataLogix) is an email marketing automation...
Read More

Oracle Marketing Cloud is a software-as-a-service solution that meets the needs of both the B2B and B2C marketer. Oracle Marketing Cloud (previously Oracle, Responsys, BlueKai, Compendium, and DataLogix) is an email marketing automation...
Read More

ActiveCampaign is an integrated marketing and customer relationship management (CRM) suite with a foundation in email marketing. Targeted towards small-to-midsize businesses, the software is designed to help organizations build their...
Read More

ActiveCampaign is an integrated marketing and customer relationship management (CRM) suite with a foundation in email marketing. Targeted towards small-to-midsize businesses, the software is designed to help organizations build their...
Read More

Pardot, a Salesforce company, is designed for organizations that primarily focus on business-to-business (B2B) sales and marketing automation. This email marketing system offers automated support for the longer timespan and multi-step...
Read More

Pardot, a Salesforce company, is designed for organizations that primarily focus on business-to-business (B2B) sales and marketing automation. This email marketing system offers automated support for the longer timespan and multi-step...
Read More

Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a part of Salesforce.com family that offers robust social marketing solution to help businesses create and manage the social presence on a variety of social media sites. The solution offers multiple functionalities...
Read More

Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a part of Salesforce.com family that offers robust social marketing solution to help businesses create and manage the social presence on a variety of social media sites. The solution offers multiple functionalities...
Read More

Experiture is an all-in-one marketing automation and customer engagement platform used by small to midsize businesses in many verticals. In addition to creating marketing programs across email, web, mobile and more, the system...
Read More

Experiture is an all-in-one marketing automation and customer engagement platform used by small to midsize businesses in many verticals. In addition to creating marketing programs across email, web, mobile and more, the system...
Read More

Dialog Insight is a cloud-based email marketing platform suited for small and large businesses alike. It is customizable and can be adapted to particular business needs.
Dialog Insight allows users to deploy real-time, personalized...
Read More

Dialog Insight is a cloud-based email marketing platform suited for small and large businesses alike. It is customizable and can be adapted to particular business needs.
Dialog Insight allows users to deploy real-time, personalized...
Read More

StandPilot is a stand management, lead management and email marketing system for exhibitors at conferences and trade shows. Users can capture and process leads, manage stand building activities, showcase products from an interactive...
Read More

StandPilot is a stand management, lead management and email marketing system for exhibitors at conferences and trade shows. Users can capture and process leads, manage stand building activities, showcase products from an interactive...
Read More

OpenMoves is a cloud-based email marketing platform designed for small and midsize businesses. It offers campaign management, lead nurturing and analytics within a suite.
OpenMoves features an automated triggered email module that...
Read More

OpenMoves is a cloud-based email marketing platform designed for small and midsize businesses. It offers campaign management, lead nurturing and analytics within a suite.
OpenMoves features an automated triggered email module that...
Read More

Buyer's Guide

Email marketing is one of the most popular marketing techniques around. In fact, if measured by volume alone, it’s probably the most popular marketing method of all time! So what exactly is email marketing, what does it accomplish for businesses and why is it so popular? We answer these and other questions below.

Many describe email marketing as the online version of direct mail marketing. They’re similar, since both help companies reach out to customers with their marketing message. They’re also similar because both are relatively cheap and so can be sent in large quantities. This lets companies reach larger and wider audiences with greater frequency and lower expense.

While there are some similarities, it’s not until we look at the differences between the two methods that email marketing really begins to shine. Most significantly and unlike direct mail, emails are trackable. This allows marketers to see which recipients are engaging with their content and, in some cases, how they engage with it. Mature email marketing efforts use this information to refine future marketing efforts, whether by email or other channels.

Email marketing software is the tool that businesses use to run and automate common email marketing tasks. The software is also used to measure the engagement and impact of each email marketing campaign and to help companies find better ways of segmenting their customers and audience. (While it’s theoretically possible to engage in email marketing without dedicated software, the vast majority of companies need the automation that email marketing software provides in order for it to be a profitable strategy.)

This guide will help you learn more about email marketing software systems and their range of functions. With this information you’ll be ready to make the right purchase decision and put email marketing to work for you. Here's what we'll cover:

Reviewers' Choice

Our Reviewers’ Choice list shows the five highest user-rated software solutions for Email Marketing when adjusted for total number of reviews and recency of reviews.

If a software solution has more reviews, and more recent reviews, we value those ratings more highly than a product with fewer, older reviews. This is because is it much harder to get 100 five-star reviews than it is to get 10.

We also know that software vendors continually tweak and update their product, so we believe that more recent reviews tend to be more accurate.

To determine which products made the final cut, we looked at how users rated each solution's:

Overall performance,

Ease of use, and

Customer support

A solution can make the Reviewers' Choice top five in all three categories, or just one or two. All software solutions in the Reviewers' Choice have at least 10 reviews from real software users. The final products are listed in alphabetical order from left to right.

For more details on how we selected our Reviewers' Choice, read the full methodology.

What Is Email Marketing Software?

In general, email marketing software is used to create, launch and track email campaigns to promote a company’s marketing message. It uses email as the primary vehicle for ''keeping in touch'' with leads. Its goal is to nurture the leads and keep the brand’s solution top-of-mind, until the leads are ready to convert into paying customers. These systems are designed to improve efficiency by automating the more common activities of email marketing, of which there are many. They can also provide insight into the success rate of each individual campaign. Additionally, they help companies generate and maintain more consistent messaging across all email marketing communications.

Specifically, most email marketing solutions include tools that help companies capture and segment leads, automate email delivery and track the results of email campaigns.

Common Email Marketing Software Functionality

While capabilities may vary from vendor to vendor, most email marketing programs typically include the following functionalities:

Lead capture

Captures lead information from web forms, landing pages etc.

Basic segmentation

Groups contacts or leads by shared characteristics (e.g., by demographic or household attributes, or by industry segment or past purchase history).

Email templates

Time-saving templates that can be used for frequently sent messages and requests.

Mass email delivery

Provides the means to send emails in batches to groups of contacts.

Drip (scheduled) email delivery

Automatically sends email messages over a scheduled period of time, helping keep the marketing message top of mind.

Email open rate and click-through tracking

Tracks the success of individual email campaigns by measuring the frequency with which prospects engage (open, click links etc.).

Key Considerations

Here are a few other things to keep in mind as you evaluate email marketing products:

Consider what mediums your customers are using.

Consumers now interact with emails on multiple devices (such as mobile phones and tablets). Consider systems that optimize emails for viewing on mobile devices. If you or your customers are social media users, look for a system that allows you to incorporate social components into emails. For example, you might consider a system that includes email templates with social sharing buttons.

Decide what degree of personalization you'd like to offer.

If all you want to do is send a monthly newsletter to a large group of contacts, select any system that sends mass emails. If you'd like to automatically send emails on a pre-determined schedule, also look for drip email functionality. To send personalized emails to leads based on their interactions with your company or website (a form of drip email marketing), choose a system with strong segmentation tools and the ability to send targeted emails.

When comparing email marketing solutions, think about the other tools it'll need to communicate with. You might consider vendors that offer native integrations with customer relationship management (CRM) products, or plug-ins that connect the platform to other software. If you plan to use your mobile device to access your email marketing system, look for a vendor that offers a native or web-based mobile app. Many vendors also offer integration support and services.

Consider what you'll need in the future.

Stand-alone email marketing tools typically only track interactions related to email campaigns. However, some are offered as part of larger marketing cloud suites. Among other things, these suites include tools for:

If you expect your business to need these other capabilities, consider a marketing suite. Alternatively, you might look for an email marketing platform that is customizable and can integrate with other systems if you'd prefer to add capabilities over time.

In just fifteen minutes, the experts at Software Advice can help you narrow down the right software for your organization. Call us for a Free FastStart Consultation: +35 376 680 1856

How it Works

We match organizations with software that meets their needs.

Our service is simple and 100% free to customers like you because software vendors pay us when we connect them with quality leads. You save time and get great advice. Vendors get great referrals. It's a win for everyone!